Author: Henry James

Transcribed from the 1887 Macmillan and Co. edition
by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk, proofed
by Jennifer Austin.

THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE
by Henry James

We had been talking about the masters who had achieved
but a single masterpiece—­the artists and
poets who but once in their lives had known the divine
afflatus and touched the high level of perfection.
Our host had been showing us a charming little cabinet
picture by a painter whose name we had never heard,
and who, after this single spasmodic bid for fame,
had apparently relapsed into obscurity and mediocrity.
There was some discussion as to the frequency of
this phenomenon; during which, I observed, H—–­
sat silent, finishing his cigar with a meditative air,
and looking at the picture which was being handed
round the table. “I don’t know how
common a case it is,” he said at last, “but
I have seen it. I have known a poor fellow who
painted his one masterpiece, and”—­he
added with a smile—­“he didn’t
even paint that. He made his bid for fame and
missed it.” We all knew H—–­
for a clever man who had seen much of men and manners,
and had a great stock of reminiscences. Some
one immediately questioned him further, and while
I was engrossed with the raptures of my neighbour
over the little picture, he was induced to tell his
tale. If I were to doubt whether it would bear
repeating, I should only have to remember how that
charming woman, our hostess, who had left the table,
ventured back in rustling rose-colour to pronounce
our lingering a want of gallantry, and, finding us
a listening circle, sank into her chair in spite of
our cigars, and heard the story out so graciously
that, when the catastrophe was reached, she glanced
across at me and showed me a tear in each of her beautiful
eyes.

* * * * *

It relates to my youth, and to Italy: two fine
things! (H—–­ began). I had
arrived late in the evening at Florence, and while
I finished my bottle of wine at supper, had fancied
that, tired traveller though I was, I might pay the
city a finer compliment than by going vulgarly to bed.
A narrow passage wandered darkly away out of the
little square before my hotel, and looked as if it
bored into the heart of Florence. I followed
it, and at the end of ten minutes emerged upon a great
piazza, filled only with the mild autumn moonlight.
Opposite rose the Palazzo Vecchio, like some huge
civic fortress, with the great bell-tower springing
from its embattled verge as a mountain-pine from the
edge of a cliff. At its base, in its projected